Welcome to Your Life

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One conversation with a stranger can change your life… Serena is about to marry her one and only boyfriend Alastair, until a fateful conversation with a taxi driver on her wedding day, makes her realise that she can’t go through with it. Not the best timing, but she comes to terms with the fact that familiarity and routine in her relationship, isn’t what love is all about. She packs up, moves from her town to London to start fresh. With the support of her friend Lola, she has a place to stay and a new job to keep her going. It’s time for Serena to explore her needs and find herself in the process. So when Lola suggests Serena should get out there by having a date each week, she doesn’t feel ready, but Serena has to take the lead in her life in order to truly know what she wants.

I enjoyed this story. It was a breath of fresh air to read plus size representation in a book. Not only did Serena battle with the decision of leaving her partner of 10 years, but she doubted anyone would want to be with her because she was plus size. There was this raw personal struggle that she vocalised and if it wasn’t for her friends Nicole and Lola breaking those barriers, Serena may have not found her footing. There was a lot of life changes and it was a new chapter, but her demons surrounding weight had clouded what Serena deserved in life.

The closure with Alastair later on in the book felt mutually beneficial. As he came to realise they needed to break up also, it allowed for it to end on good terms. The “I love you” moment with Henry reminded me of How I Met Your Mother in that first episode. Henry was sweet and really did to fit well with Serena. When he sent that text, I was like nooo!

Really loved Nicole and Lola’s personalities. They were definitely the type of people that would support and encourage you through anything. That’s the great thing about living and learning - it means you can help others with life advice when you see someone else struggle through something you did.

Overall, I thought this book was a great read surrounding self discovery. It makes you think about what you want out of life and how your own mind can stop you from exploring experiences through your own fears and insecurities.

The Hemsworth Effect

I loved that this was set in Australia and there were many pop culture references. I do have mixed feelings on this book and it was a bit too slow paced for me.

The story follows Aimee who is a cranky Byron Bay local. She hates the influencers that have plagued her town. She calls it the Hemsworth effect where celebrities and, in this instance, Chris Hemsworth has boasted about this coastal town causing and influx of tourists taking over a once quaint locality. Her fiancé Tim has asked to take a break to see if they should really get married and that they should see other people. Aimee's landlord just passed away and the daughter wants to sell the building in which her bookstore is situated. It's tough as she has no savings to save it. She's protesting about a reality show the Brats of Byron Bay being filmed, only to find out her niece Fleur is going to feature on it. Aimee gets turned into a meme "Byron Karen" which goes viral and is then the produces see this as a golden opportunity to have her on the reality show too. With money tight, she goes against her own values to star on this show with the type of influencers she hates, only to find out one of them is dating her fiancé. With the support of her friends, she can survive, but will anything go right?

Is it bad that I loved the side characters more than the MC. I especially loved Rob as she was so funny and witty. If the best friends of Charlie and Rob weren't there and Aimee was soloing this story, I probably would have DNF. I wanted so hard to relate to Aimee, though I felt like she was making poor choices and didn't really accept responsibility in making good changes in her life. From her situation with Tim, then her bookstore's building being sold, to making money on the reality TV show with the type of people she hated, not letting people in when they were trying to help... yes, it was one thing after another in her life, but was I meant to be frustrated with her the whole time? Was that the point? Also felt like the ending left some parts unresolved... especially with Tim - I wanted a deep and meaningful conversation. Should Aimee have fixed her trauma over her sister's death? Could she have confronted Rozzie? I wanted more of a conversation with Heath.

What I did enjoy was how over the top Brooke was. She made me laugh with all the cringe worthy moments she created and it was like how I imagine some influencers to be - creating drama for the sake of the camera. I thought what happened on the reality show was funny and Addie and Luna with their outgoing personalities, especially on the podcast was hilarious. I thought the relationship with her niece Fleur was sweet and how she had to mum her because she loved her. The moments with Tim and his fedora made me cringe a lot but in a funny way. The time spent with Jules and Heath really did spark some change in Aimee and it definitely opened her up to trying new things.

Overall, I am 50/50 and if the book was shorter without repeated dialogue and description, I think I would have liked it more.

Thanks to Netgalley, the publisher and author for having this available as an ARC. This will be available 30th November.

The Stand-In

This book was all over audible when I first joined. It is also available now in written format in paperback or e-book. I was flipping between the two to see how each would fare and thought either one works well.

We are introduced to Gracie who is sexually harassed by her boss Todd and takes a sick day to seek a lawyer for advice. The lawyer asks why she didn’t approach HR first and she mentions that she didn’t think it was a good avenue to explore. After the meeting she grabs a coffee at a local cafe and notices photographers snapping her photo. She doesn’t think too much of it.

Gracie gets to work the next day and Todd knows she wasn’t really sick, showing her the photos of her from the paparazzi mistaking her for international famous actress Wei Fangli. She gets fired and this starts some stress and worry. Gracie is wanting to get her mum into a good nursing home as she is being cared for her Alzheimers. In comes Wei Fangli with an offer of a lifetime. Can Gracie stand-in for Fangli at public events? Since the paparazzi already mistook her, it could work. Fangli’s closest friend and pretend boyfriend Sam Yao (also internally famous for acting) thinks it’s a bad idea. Gracie really wants the money to help her mum and decides what’s the harm in pretending to be famous for awhile?

I loved that we had representation in this book. The MC is biracial and so is the author. The concept of the book was funny and I don’t know that I could fake being someone famous as Gracie put in a lot of hard work to pull it off. It wouldn’t be the easiest job and there were moments that she could have easily been caught out.

What I loved about this book was that the characters didn’t realise they needed each other until they crossed paths. They each had a hand in each others growth and that to me was special. I didn’t love Sam at first and thought he was a bit of a rude d%*k to Gracie, but when they had their truce, they started to really understand one another. Recognising similar traits in herself, I liked how Gracie was able to assist Fangli get the help she needed for her depression.

There was a twist towards the end that I didn’t see coming, because I just wasn’t expecting it and it worked so well in the story. It was a sweet ending where everyone got something unexpected out of this bizarre set up.